To Whom It May Concern,
Today, at least the day I am writing this, is July 15th, 1972. My name is Sir Thomas Fein of Oxford, England. The reason why you are reading this is fairly simple. I am most certainly long dead and done away with by now. May the earthlings and worms find the proper nourishment from my body upon which they now indefinitely feast. The reason why things turned out this way, however, is not so simple. On the 23rd of June this same year, I purchased a secluded home on a small island just off the coast of Australia.
I moved into my quiet island home with my wife on July 1st. Now, the island was pleasant enough for the first week. Then on July 8th, my wife and I noticed the sound of children laughing and running amuck in the forest behind our home. At first, I felt as if I had been made a fool of by the seller of the location. So, in my fit of anger, I called the previous owner, one Mr. Harold Bynum, an American fellow if I’m not mistaken. When I finally got ahold of the bloke, he swore on his family name that there weren’t any children on the island when he sold it to me. Being a rather skeptical man, I told him that he must be lying. Still, he insisted that he spoke the truth. At this moment, I noticed a fearful inflection in the bloke’s voice. It was as if he knew something but couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Before I could speak further, the line went dead.
How dare he hang up on me? I thought in a new found fit of rage. I called him back immediately. However, as soon as I dialed the number, I was redirected to a prerecorded message that told me the number I was trying to reach had been disconnected.
That’s odd I thought. And I was right, it was very odd, indeed. At the time, I never thought anything of it, but now I feel like the royal jester for not leaving the island in that instant.
When I awoke the next morning on July 9th, I found that the entire phone was missing; cord ripped right from the wall, too. Upon my discovery, I woke my wife immediately.
“Does anything in here look peculiar to you?” I asked.
She shook her head in that innocent way she does when she lies.
“Have you made any calls?”
At this, her eyes go wide. She darts her attention to where the phone no longer sat, then breathed a sigh of relief. Of all things, I couldn’t believe how she had responded to my instigation. I asked her what that reaction was for.
She replied: “I thought the phone had returned.”
“So you removed it?” I asked intensely. Obviously, I knew the answer. Who else would have removed it? Those children, those hooligans, in the forest? I think not. She nodded at me, face pale and visually unsettled.
“What?” I asked.
“I removed it because it kept ringing throughout the night. An awful nuisance that phone is.”
This struck me as odd because I hadn’t heard the phone ring a single time throughout the night and I am a very light sleeper. My wife then proceeded to tell me that the phone continued to ring even after she removed it. She then stated that, after another restless hour, she could take no more. So she buried it outside then and there; barefooted and in her nightgown.
After that strange incident, we lived once more in peace, until July 11th. Now, these last days leading up to where I sit right now writing this letter on the stained pages ripped from my personal diary had been most troubling. There is a boatman who would swing by the island around seven every morning, where he would deliver us the daily news from shore. My wife and I took a stroll down to the beach around ten in the morning of July 11th. The sight before my eyes once we got there was infuriating. There was no newspaper. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Maybe the boatman didn’t come by this morning. I thought the same thing until I noticed adult sized footprints leading up the beach to the mailbox and back to the sea.
“Maybe someone stole it,” my wife suggested.
This made a good deal of sense. The mailbox was positioned at the end of the beach where the grass began. It was possible that someone had come from the forest and opened the mailbox without setting foot on the beach. This would leave no visible footprints. I believed my wife, and I knew or thought I knew, precisely who was to blame. Those damned children from the woods! If I still had a phone, I would have rushed back to my new home to call Mr. Bynum and demand him to tell me who these children are and why they are on my island. I paid a pretty penny for this place and now I can’t even enjoy it!
The same thing happened on July 12th. No newspaper, but footprints leading to and from the mailbox. So I devised a plan; the next morning, my wife, always the early bird, would wake me at six-fifteen on the dot. Then I would go down to the beach and wait for the boatman. But if the feral children arrived before the boatman, then I would have a nasty surprise for them. You see, I have always been very fond of hunting, and especially a fan of firearms. When my wife and I moved into our home, I made sure to bring my Lee-Enfield Number 4 rifle with me. So when the time came, I would bring the rifle to the beach to await the children or boatman. I hope you who found this message, whenever it may have been discovered, is not getting the wrong impression. I wasn’t going to kill the children, Heavens no, I would never even think of committing such a heinous act. I was just going to scare them tremendously so that they left my island. I was in the right. In fact, because the island officially belonged to me, I could have legally shot them dead. All of them if I so desired, one by one. It is my island, not theirs. I want you to understand the reasoning behind my plan. Trust me, you would do the same thing if it were you in this situation instead of I.
My wife, never much of a gun collector, opposed this plan strongly.
“You can’t frighten children with a gun, Thomas! No matter how much of a nuisance they are,” She nagged at me. Frankly, I felt that my wife was becoming quite the nuisance, herself.
The morning of July 13th came. Instead of being awoken by my wife, the sun peering through the blinds did the job. As soon as I saw the light outside, I knew my time had passed. When I looked to the clock on the wall, it read: 8:17. I had missed my scheduled appointment with either the boatman or the feral children by just over two hours. I was fuming. How dare my wife purposefully defy me by not waking me up at the time I had instructed! I sat up in bed and turned to my wife, only to see her side of the bed lay empty.
She must’ve gone to the beach alone I thought, still annoyed by her defiance. However, all would be forgiven if she had gotten the damn newspaper. So I roll out of bed and notice that her side is caked with dried mud beneath the covers.
“What’d she bury this time?” I muttered under my breath. I pulled on my trousers and headed to the beach to meet her. Except once I got there, she was nowhere to be found. There were the same footprints from the past two mornings marking the beach. Except this time, instead of approaching the mailbox, they took a sharp right and headed into the forest. I opened the mailbox, and guess what I found? Nothing. Once again, for the third bloody time in a row, I don’t have my morning paper! This is beyond unacceptable. How the Hell am I supposed to know what is going on in the rest of the world if no one brings me my paper? And if I may add, bringing me the paper and making sure I receive it is the boatman’s job. Although I suppose I shouldn’t be too upset with the man himself because, in his defense, he probably assumed I was the one taking the paper from the mailbox. How was he supposed to know feral children ran rampant on this island?
So as patiently as I could, I trekked back to my home. Once I arrived, I ripped out the first piece of paper from my diary. There I wrote:
Dear boatman,
You are probably unaware of this fact, but I haven’t been receiving my daily paper. I believe someone is stealing it before I awake. If it isn’t too much of an inconvenience, would you please deliver it to my doorstep? Thank you.
Signed,
Thomas Fein
I headed back to the beach, still no sign of my wife, and placed the note neatly in the mailbox. Then I headed back to my home to await my wife’s return. I figured that she just needed some time to herself.
I emerged from my slumber on July 14th once more alone in bed. I then quickly found more mud on my wife’s side. This time, however, the mud wasn’t dry. It was wet, signaling that she must have just left recently. I glanced to my right and saw that the key to the door had been neatly placed back on my dresser. Now I can’t tell you why the woman was so upset. The only thing I could think of at that time, was that she must have still been upset over the plan two days ago. I’m sure most men’s wives would get over such a petty issue after a day at most. But my wife is no ordinary wife. She holds onto every little thing for days, sometimes weeks on end. Ridiculous things too, like forgetting to put the seat down when I go to the toilets, or not helping with the laundry. God forbid I even so much as suggest using my gun for anything other than hunting. It’s as if the woman thinks I’m a lunatic! Annoyed, tired, and groggy, I make myself some hot tea with milk. Then, I open my door only to see no newspaper awaiting me. The fourth day in a row, now. But once again, I cannot blame the boatman. It appeared that he had read my letter and did as instructed, because there were footprints leading from the beach to my doorstep, and all the way back. Those damned kids! So I decide that tomorrow, wife or no wife, I will execute my plan, but because I was without an alarm clock, I went to bed early at eight p.m.
Today it was still dark outside when I awoke. I checked the clock and saw that it read: 3:43. Perfect. Two hours to spare before my rendezvous with the boatman. My wife is still missing, of course, and she also left more, even fresher mud in her place. The mud in itself was tremendously annoying, I tell you. I am one who likes to wash the sheets once a week, but now because of my wife decorating the covers with it each night, I have to wash them every single day.
Deciding not to wash the sheets at this moment, I headed down stairs and began to perform my morning ritual. While doing so, around three fifty-five, the laughing of the feral children returned. This time louder as if they were in my very lawn, awaiting the boatman to drop off the paper so they could steal it for the fifth bloody time! And the most mind-numbingly enraging thing about this situation, was that damned snickering. Their rotten laugh, mocking me, making a fool of the Fein family name! As soon as I heard the laughter, I rushed upstairs and grabbed my rifle. The laughter continued. This time louder! Every chuckle increasing in volume until I could take no more! I practically sprinted outside and fired a warning shot into the air. To this, I got no response. I was hoping for a scream or maybe a fearful whimper. But at least the laughter had stopped, and that was good enough for the time being. I went back inside to my dark and empty home and finished my tea.
I left my home for the last time at four-thirty. The beach is no more than a ten to fifteen-minute walk away, so I probably got there around four forty-five. There I waited for four whole hours. No sight of the boatman or even a feral child.
Those blasted devils must have scared the boatman away yesterday morning! I thought angrily. Then, they must have seen me on the beach from the safety of their accursed woods and, knowing I’m armed, must have decided not to approach me. Five days without the newspaper; three without my wife. This was the final straw, I tell you. I’m only a man, and men can only take so much before they snap. I grabbed my rifle and rushed for the woods.
The next thing I remember clearly is stumbling out of the forest an hour later. My head throbbed and my gun was hot to the touch as if it had been fired. When I looked down, I saw a bloody trail beneath my feet painting the sand as I stumbled back to the beach. I had become a paint brush and the blood pouring over the sandy canvas is my paint.
“I think they wounded me,” I thought aloud. That made perfect sense. My head hurt tremendously and I had no mirror to see if I had an open wound. I couldn’t remember my encounter in the forest, either. Yes, this must be a head injury. In this moment, my neck grew heavy, so I let it hang. When I looked back to the ground is when I saw my wife’s lifeless body being dragged across the beach by me! How foolish was I for not noticing this earlier? I’m not the paint brush, I am the painter and my deceased wife is the brush! I dropped her to the ground and fell to my knees. I began to sob, and through my tears I saw that the top of her once-beautiful head had been taken off by a bullet. My reddening eyes went wider as I remembered that my very own rifle was hot to the touch. It had been fired! Someone shot my wife with my own gun! But it couldn’t have been me, no surely not! One of the feral children must have knocked me out, found my wife, shot her, then placed the gun back in my hands. Yes, that has to be it! But no one would believe me. They’d think I had gone mad and murdered her in a fit of rage! After all, Mr. Bynum claims to have no knowledge of these feral children. And if the previous owner doesn’t know about them, then surely the public doesn’t, either! They will think I’m a lunatic! They’ll call for my execution! No, I can’t live life like that. But I can’t go back to the mainland. If I stay here, then sooner or later I’ll be discovered and arrested. So; I, Sir Thomas Edwin Fein of Oxford, England declare that I will be ending my own life right here on this beach. I am stuffing these pages in a bottle and casting it out to sea. I don’t anticipate anyone discovering this anytime soon. But whoever you are, know these two facts. Believe me, I beg of you.
First, I did not kill my wife. Second, I am not crazy. Please believe me and stay away from these islands. I beg you.
Signed,
Sir Thomas Fein.
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